Sideboard (15)

Description

And, no. I'm not going to use Farseek over Sphere of the Suns. Sphere takes a hand of 3 colorless-producing lands, Solemn, and random things and makes it amazing. Farseek would make that a 100% mulligan.

Updates

After the previous two weeks' lackluster performances, my deck finally broke out of its weird "I refuse to give you more than 2 lands in any given hand"-slump and came through with a first-place victory.

Game 2: LOSS - I missed my sixth land-drop by one turn and my Primeval Titan fetched out 2 Glimmerposts a turn too late to stabilize.

Game 3: WIN - He apparently kept 2 lands and 2 mana dorks. After he dropped a Blade Splicer and once I got to 5 lands, I tapped out for Blasphemous Act. A follow-up Frost Titan was more than enough of a presence to make my opponent scoop.

Game 1: WIN - He managed to get out a turn-5 Griselbrand, but he was already down to 11 life. He drew 7 cards in response to my Miracle Devastation Tide, but apparently drew nothing to to save him. Frost Titan coming down again and tapping one of his Black sources (after two Birds of Paradise were bounced) ensured his Griselbrand wouldn't be back and gaining life anytime soon.

I missed this deck. I missed ramp. I missed casting 4 different spells in one turn and still using Kessig Wolf Run to add damage. I'm glad I made the switch back to over-the-top ramp, which I feel is what I'm best at.

Game 3: LOSS - It appeared as though he kept a hand of land and a bunch of Zealous Conscripts and Act of Aggression. After the fourth turn in a row of him stealing my threats, I scooped. And now I'm kicking myself that my idea of adding Apostle's Blessing to the sideboard for this very reason had fallen by the wayside earlier that day.

Top 4 prize split. At the end of the Top 8 round, I was in third place. Woo-hoo?

Post-tournament thoughts

Oh my god. Why did I ever want to take out Frost Titan? He's so good right now. With all of the small-curve decks that only have 3 or 4 lands out and rely on cheap, cost-efficient removal/evasion (like Gideon's Avenger), they get boned by Frost Titan and his tendency to stay on the board.

Sphinx of Uthuun still manages to amaze me. Even if it reveals 5 lands from the top of my library, I'm likely going to be getting a utility land and now I'm not going to be land-flooded. And no matter what, I'm getting a 5/6 Flying out of it, which is the perfect target for Kessig Wolf Run. And then it reveals cards like it did in the second round and I can't lose.

Desolate Lighthouse definitely saved me in a few games. It's just great value when I don't need to cast Sphere of the Suns on my eleventh turn. It's also handy at giving me Miracles on my opponents' turns, since a Miracle would be the first card I drew that turn. I haven't yet set up a Ponder to Bonfire someone on their own turn, but I will, and you'll know all about it.

Small FNM tonight. I live in a college town, it's summer, and a new shop opened up across town and took all of the crappy high-school kids away from us. What do you want?

Round 1: Wolf Run Blue vs. Naya Pod

Game 1: WIN - He apparently kept a hand with no Birthing Pod but with lots of ramp. He had 3 Birds of Paradise by the end of his second turn, but I dropped 2 Vapor Snags to slow him down. The turn after, he cast Birthing Pod, but I played Tamiyo, the Moon Sage to keep it under control. Without being able to tutor something out to deal with Tamiyo, he was dead in the water.

Game 2: WIN - He dropped a turn-2 Pod and started going to town, but as soon as I reached 5 mana, Devastation Tide sent his entire board back to his hand with only 3 Lands out. He tried to play his Pod and build back up, but back-to-back Frost Titans kept everything locked down for the remainder of the game.

Game 2: WIN - He was playing super conservatively, so I figured he had a Mana Leak or Dissipate in his hand. Drawing Cavern of Souls as my sixth land made me smile, as did casting 3 Titans back-to-back with it. Cavern of Souls is just too good for the game.

Game 2: LOSS - First loss of the night. I kept a mediocre hand of 5 lands, Ponder, and Rampant Growth. I drew nothing but lands and Ponders, which revealed more lands with lands coming off the top after shuffling. D=

With places and prizes being awarded based on standings at the end of the third round, I was the only undefeated player. 1st place, bitches!

Post-FNM thoughts

Devastation Tide is SO good. I honestly like it more than Day of Judgment in today's meta, since there are plenty of artifacts and enchantments running around, ruining everyone's fun. So instead of just killing their creatures and leaving the next ones to be just as powerful, why not just thrust everything your opponent has done thus far back into his/her hand and laugh as he/she can only play 1 or 2 spells with 10 cards in hand?

Desolate Lighthouse is amazing in Wolf Run. One of the only issues I have with Wolf Run Ramp (which comes from a short list, mind you) is the decreased value of your draws in the late-game. Nobody wants to draw a Rampant Growth on their eleventh turn, but it happens. but it happens. Desolate Lighthouse lets me dump that shit and start fresh, for an amount of mana that WRR can afford to allot each turn.

Well, well. 41 people at FNM this week. As much as I'd like to play at my normal shop, it just comes down to playing with 9 people or playing with 41. Which would you choose? I'm going to choose this shop.

This guy said that he had started playing just a few weeks prior. He had a lot of the necessary cards for RDW, just without the experience to know how to play the deck. I won 2-0, but I gave him a lot of pointers and tips along the way, because I'm not a douche bag all the time.

Round 1 results: 2-0_____________________

Round 2: Wolf Run Blue vs. U/G Infect

Just got too overwhelmed. I had Vapor Snags, but he had 4 mainboarded Apostle's Blessing and 4 mainboarded Ranger's Guile. He even mullied down to 5 on the draw in the second game and still killed me pretty quickly. I love my deck but its blaring weakness to super-aggressive creature strategies is really starting to annoy me. In these colors, though, there's not much I can do about it. I think it's time to switch decks.

Game 1: LOSS - 2x Blood Artist by the third turn was just too much for me to handle and I dug through 38 cards (I counted) until I drew Primeval Titan. By that time, it was a turn too late for Glimmerpost to save me. You'd think after using 4x Ponder by my fifth turn, I'd come up with something. Guess not.

Game 2: WIN - A ridiculous game. It involved me getting down to 1 life, casting Blasphemous Act with only a single Blood Artist on the field, top-decking Ponders into playing single Glimmerposts to stay alive, Sphinx of Uthuun being a fuckin' machine, and being a bit of a rules-Nazi. In my defense, though, rules are rules and may abilities can be skipped without me saying anything.

Went 2-0 pretty easily. Having already been elminated from Top 8, however, I gave my points to my opponent, who is also from my regular card shop and ha a record of 3-1. He later managed to make the Top 4, so yay.

FNM results: 9-5 in games, 4-2 in rounds. I'm not sure what place I got because I won four rounds but gave my wins to my friend so he could advance on since I already couldn't make Top 8. If I had 4-2 on the standings, it would've been 10th-14th place. Out of 41, that's not too bad, I suppose.

Post-FNM thoughts:

Sphinx of Uthuun. Oh my god. Why is nobody playing this in Standard? It's amazing, at least in a deck with so many threats to rely on. Every time I played it this tournament, I won the game. I suppose you could argue that Consecrated Sphinx might be better, but Consecrated can be killed before your opponent draws (they can even do it in their upkeep after untapping, but before the draw). Sphinx of Uthuun does shit right when it hits, and has 5 power to boot. I'm a believer.

I think, despite how much fun using Sphinx of Uthuun is, that it's time to evolve my Wolf Run deck once again. I'm looking into Black and mono-Green Wolf Run variants for next week, whichever I feel has the potential to deal with early threats easier.

Game 2: WIN - My second game of the night began with him dropping two Mayor of AvabruckFlip following a Young Wolf (I'll admit I was sweating at this point). After he let them flip by attacking and then passing the turn, I dropped two Rampant Growths to force the flip back. He dealt small bits of damage here and there, but Frost Titan hit the board and his only removal was two Incinerates. Without the 8 required mana to target it and kill it, he scooped when I played a second one.

Round 1 results: 2-0____________

Round 2: Wolf Run Blue vs. G/W Flicker

So here's the backstory. There are two card shops in my college town. Since school let out last month and a lot of people moved back to Phoenix for the summer, my shop (conveniently located 100 yards from college campus) has seen a dramatically decreased number of players at FNM. Last week, we didn't even have 8 players. So me and three of my buddies went to the high-schoolers' shop to wreck face and win lots of packs.

For the second round, even out of 26 players, we were all suspiciously paired against each other. So we decided to split our matches and play a 4-way EDH game. lol

Game 1: LOSS - Rather suspiciously, we all got paired together again. I call bullshit on the dude running the pairings, since he hates our card shop and we were all being hilarious and wearing our shop's t-shirt. Whatever. We decided to play in lieu of splitting again. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben came down on his second turn on the play, and it shut my ramp down. I couldn't handle anything that hit the battlefield.

Game 2: WIN - It was a pretty heated game. We kept Vapor Snagging each other, swinging back and forth, and whatnot. Halfway through, though, his lands were 2x Moorland Haunt, an Island, and a Seachrome Coast. I watched him tap his Seachrome Coast and both Moorland Haunts to try and play Geist of Saint Traft, but before I could say anything, eh tapped his Island to try and cast Vapor Snag on my Titan. I immediately called a judge and told him exactly what happened. The judge soon realized that he couldn't have cast both Vapor SnagandGeist of Saint Traft with just a Coast and an Island, but my opponent managed to convince him it was an accident. Whatever. His very next turn, he cast Vapor Snag on my Titan (finally). At the end of his turn, I realized the Vapor Snag wasn't in his graveyard. When I asked what happened, he stopped,looked at his hand, and said "Oh" and put it from his hand into his graveyard. I yelled for the judge again, but he didn't seem to care or think I was telling the truth. So I swung for, like, 48 with all of my creatures two turns later, called out my opponent and cussed in his face, and calmly walked away.

I'm sorry, but if you're just going to cheat that blatantly and pretend you're going to get off the hook for it, you can fuckin' think again. Maybe against the scrubs that play there weekly, but not me.

I wound up getting beat out of the 8th-place spot by my friend who beat me in the third round. We had the same record, but (again) he beat me. That made his tie-breaker against me much better, so I'm fine with that. A lot of other people wound up drawing throughout the night, so whatevs.

The cheater-kid just kind of shuffled around for a few minutes after Round 5 and finally left without saying anything to anybody. When he was walking out the door, I felt a strong urge to say something at him, but I figured I had already driven the point home pretty sufficiently. At least everyone at that shop knows that I'm not going to take their bullshit.

Post-FNM thoughts

I love Temporal Mastery. Every single time I drew it or even had it in my opening hand, it was amazing. And using a full playset of Ponder just makes both it and Devastation Tide much better.

May 19, 2012
1:44 p.m.

@Monocoloredjester: Thanks for the praise. Is there anything that you would change or do differently? I'm always open to criticism and suggestions.

@TristanTaylorsVoice: I haven't honestly considered Temporal Mastery. I suppose I just cast it aside while building this because of how overhyped it is. But if I consistently have 7 mana by the fifth or sixth turn, I suppose it doesn't matter. And even casting it early-game gives me a boost, just for playing an extra land and drawing an extra card. I'll playtest it, though. At least on paper, it seems beneficial.

May 19, 2012
3:19 p.m.

It is indeed a very overhyped card, hence its price tag, but it seems to make the most sense (for standard) to play it in a blue ramp deck. If you draw it early game, you can use it as an Explore, and late game you can use it to swing for lethal without giving your opponent time to respond with a Zealous Conscripts or something. Speaking of that card, Frost Titan is amazing against it, I'm glad it's in here as a 4-of: your opponent is most likely dead by the time they get to 7 mana to target it. I was considering the types of ramp I would play in standard and blue ramp with Frost Titan and Temporal Mastery is what appealed to me the most was all.

May 19, 2012
3:33 p.m.

Frost Titan is so good right now. Most decks' removal spells are targeted. Hell, Vapor Snag costs 3, Go for the Throat costs 4, and Oblivion Ring costs 5. 5! That's huge! That's tapping out on the fifth turn to take care of one threat that I'll likely get back later.

I forgot to mention in my report that that first guy (Naya Pod) hit my Frost Titan with Oblivion Ring with the extra cost. I then play Devastation Tide, bounced O-Ring and his creatures back to his hand, and then tapped down his only White source when F-Tits came back into play due to O-Ring leaving the battlefield. lol

May 26, 2012
4:42 p.m.

May 29, 2012
2:22 p.m.

This deck seems like it will have trouble with Boros Humans. They can generally kill turn 3 or 4, which is a problem since you lack a lot of early-game spells that will be effective against them, especially creatures. The earliest turn you will get a creature into play is 3, and you may be dead by then if they go first. Here are a few recommended additions to your sideboard to deal with them:

Whipflare
could help but it would be difficult to use reliably with your manabase. Generally, they don't play enough creatures for your Blasphemous Acts to come into play early enough, so that won't help.

Mental Misstep
can help stop their opening play, which is generally crucial to their strategy. Vapor Snag has a similar effect, but only stalls them a turn; rather than Misstep's ability to ruin their strategy.

Finally, Fog
, in combination with Snag, can help you stall them a couple turns, which will give you enough advantage to steal the momentum from them.

Other than that, I absolutely love the creativity and awesomeness of this deck. +1!

May 31, 2012
10:56 p.m.

I could see card:Alchemist's Refuge work here... saying that it would turn into a 5 mana Rampant Growth
or a 4 mana Ponder
, but it would work alright, considering it's a ramp deck by adding value to cards that would be relatively pointless later on. Is it worth running Acidic Slime
in the sb?

June 1, 2012
1:06 p.m.

I don't know. I feel that if I ran card:Alchemist's Refuge, it would just be win-more. Desolate Lighthouse
actually helps. card:Alchemist's Refuge just uses more mana to cast the same spells. And I don't feel comfortable taxing my land-base more than it already is.

June 1, 2012
2 p.m.

Your deck is amazing and it's def something I haven't seen before. But anyway I was just wondering if your deck is really fast and strong why not take out ratchet bomb and add another graff or natural in your sb?? But that's my opinion I'm not trying to judge or somethin

June 5, 2012
10:01 p.m.

June 5, 2012
11:07 p.m.

Viridian Emissary
is still really good, though. In Red, I might be tempted to run it with all of the Slagstorm
s and Whipflare
s being main-boarded. And it is a 2/1 beatstick that can prevent your opponent attacking early-game.

Though with Pillar of Flame
becoming wildly popular, I foresee its usefulness dwindling.

June 6, 2012
5:21 p.m.

In round 3 in your description, you said you used Frost Titan
to tap down Hellrider
against Boros Humans. Now, I may be missing something, and I probably am, but why does that give you a giant advantage? Hellrider
's ability still activates for every other creature he attacks with.

June 9, 2012
12:22 p.m.

It still triggers, of course. But keeping a 3/3 that deals me an extra 1 when it attacks tapped down is huge, especially when I've then got a 6/6 to block the smaller guys. So in reality, I was saving myself 4 damage + whatever I blocked. That's pretty significant.

September 8, 2012
2:34 p.m.

Without Primeval Titan
, the deck can still play similarly but loses a ton of gas. Without that ability to fetch out exactly what I need and have a metric butt-load of mana by turn 6 or 7, I likely won't be playing this deck. Yeah, there are other ramp cards, but none of them can fetch out non-basics, which is what the deck needs to survive.

But who knows? I'm sure I'm be testing something similar. I don't really see myself falling in love with whatever I come up with, though, since whatever it would be would simply be a dumbed-down version of this.

I just dropped Kessig Wolf Run
to 1 a few days ago. This is mostly a meta decision, since a lot of people have started playing Delver and U/x mid-range. I opted for Cavern of Souls
main-board over a Kessig since hardly anybody plays with Ghost Quarter
where I play.

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